Salacious Crumb

Mobile Michael

The most relevant thing about the blockade is that it is to stop illegal weapons smuggling. Israel pays for any imports to be received, vetted for weapons and then forwarded to Gaza through its own ports.

Furthermore, if Hamas were to renounce its aim of destroying Israel and killing all Jews the blockade would be lifted.

It also astounds me that people don’t know the history of the British Palestinian Mandate and its partition. If the Palestinian Arabs had accepted the Balfour declaration or the UN Partition they would have about half the land area of the current country, instead of trying to bargain for 10%.

Kimbo

Hmm. History has always used been used as a weapon in this conflict, and while I’m no fan of Hamas, nonetheless they took their cue from the successful campaign of terror initiated by the likes of the Irgun and Nazi-collaborating Lehi/Stern Gang and in the years leading up to and including 1948, such as

…the bombing of the King David Hotel,

…the Sergeant’s Affair,

…the ethnic cleansing of villages such as Deir Yassin,

…and the political assassinations of Lord Moyne and Count Bernadotte.

So as the are just as ruthless as the original Zionists who resorted to terrorism or were prepared to ride its coat tails, I guess Hamas fancies their chances over the long run, useful fools like Marama Davidson assisting…

Mobile Michael

I don’t for one second think the Zionist minority in Israel, or Israel’s overtly aggressive clandestine (and non-clandestine) operations in the middle east are helpful in resolving the current situation.

But Israel, Fatah, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and possibly Saudi Arabia are willing to have a peaceful negotiation to find a solution to the current situation, Syria may fall into line following its civil war. That leaves Iran and Hamas as the last hold outs in the region needed for a meaningful forward step.

What’s especially galling to me that it is nearly 25 years since the Soviet Union collapsed – the old Cold War alliance of US-Israel and USSR-Arab should not still be influencing the Lefts policy.

Kimbo

Hmm.

Maybe. Or maybe it is just another in a never-ending cycle. Regimes and outside influences – the British, the UN the USA, The Soviets – will come and go. Nations such as Egypt and Jordan will accept Israel is a fact…just as Iran once did before the Islamic Revolution. But unless the Middle East is radically transformed, then the modern state of Israel will likely remain what she has always been – a source of discord and potential conflict and even ethnic cleansing. Like the Balkans….outwardly peaceful for decades, until suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere the killing erupts again.

You talk about “the Zionist” minority being one of the causes of on-going trouble. Hmm. In reality anyone who accepts and in in any way supports the existence of the state of Israel (and despite the misgivings I have mentioned I do)…is a Zionist. So the cycle of trouble goes on.

Easy to preach to others, particularly Palestinians they should be “reasonable” (and to their credit many are) after they have had a foreign invasion land on their doorstep. Sure, common sense now says they should accept co-existence, but then as Israel’s long-term existence will always be in doubt is it any wonder people who have been radicalised by war decide to play a non-negotiable long-game? And they can look to the Lehi and Irgun and all the Zionist settlers who showed sometimes/often “being reasonable” is not what determines political reality and the course of human affairs.

And as I posted below, the original founders of the state of Israel knew this is what Israel would probably look like…for ever. They sure had plenty of counsel and warnings, which they chose to ignore.

Dr. Hussein Khalidi is at the center of a startling new report, in which several Arab eyewitnesses to the Deir Yassin battle admitted that some of their original claims about Jewish atrocities were fabricated. The latest issue of the Jerusalem Report (April 2, 1998) reveals that in a forthcoming BBC television program, Hazem Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service’s Arabic news in 1948, admits that he was told by Hussein Khalidi to fabricate claims of atrocities at Deir Yassin in order to encourage Arab regimes to invade the Jewish state-to-be.

According to the Jerusalem Report, Nusseibeh “describes an encounter at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi… ‘I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story,’ recalled Nusseibeh. ‘He said, “We must make the most of this.” So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped. All sorts of atrocities.'”

The BBC program then shows a recent interview with Abu Mahmud, who was a Deir Yassin resident in 1948, who says that the villagers protested against the atrocity claims “‘We said, “There was no rape.” [Khalidi] said, “We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.'”

Nusseibeh, who is a member of one of Jerusalem’s most prominent Arab families and presently lives in Amman, told the BBC that the fabricated atrocity stories about Deir Yassin were “our biggest mistake,” because “Palestinians fled in terror” and left the country in huge numbers after hearing the atrocity claims.

In 1948, Labor Zionist leaders initially claimed there was a massacre, in order to score points against the rival Irgun Zvai Leumi and Stern Group, the fighters who conquered Deir Yassin. But Israel’s Labor-led governments have, over the years, gradually rescinded the massacre accusation. A little-known 1952 Defense Ministry judicial court ruled that Deir Yassin was a legitimate military target. Official Israeli government statements about Deir Yassin, in 1960 and 1969 (under Foreign Ministers Golda Meir and Abba Eban), formally rebuked the Labor Zionist officials who had made the false massacre accusation in 1948, describing the “massacre” charge as a “fairy tale” and a “big lie.”

Kimbo

@ Fletch

Deir Yassin is an oft-repeated lie…

Ho hum. And the first casualty of war is the truth.

Give it enough time, Fletch, and Zionist propaganda will say the same of the King David Hotel bombing, the Sergeants Affair, and the murder of Lord Moyne (the British Minister of State in the Middle East assassinated while thousands of British servicemen were dying in Europe fighting Nazism, and the Final Solution was going into high gear),

…and, most shameful of all Count Bernadotte, a man who had saved Danish Jews from the gas chambers…

Kimbo, the Arabs themselves admit it.
Yes, there was a battle, but no slaughter of innocents – no rape or murder. The only murder that occurred at Deir Yassin is of a busload of nurses by Arabs in reprisal for a made-up slaughter.

A massacre did take indeed take place, following the events in Deir Yassin, which had occurred on Friday morning April 9, 1948. On Monday morning, April 13, 1948, an Arab mob, chanting “Deir Yassin”, massacred a bus convoy of Jewish doctors and nurses who were headed to Hadassah hospital on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.

Seventy-eight members of Hadassah’s medical staff were murdered in cold blood. Only recently was it revealed that some of the Hadassah nurses had found refuge in the nearby compound of the British consul, only to be turned over to Arabs by the Brits, and the Arabs proceeded to slaughter them in “revenge” for what they thought had occurred at Deir Yassin.

Kimbo

@ Fletch

Kimbo, the Arabs themselves admit it.
Yes, there was a battle, but no slaughter of innocents – no rape or murder.

Even if that is true,…yet when it suited Zionist purposes – and you admit it was a reason Palestinians fled (so it wasn’t just the invitation from the surrounding Arab nations in anticipation of the “Jews being driven into the sea” that caused them to leave!) – they exploited it. And it certainly fitted with the ruthless reputation that the Lehi had earned…which is the essence and aim of terror, is it not? Get your target to do something they don’t want by force of arms against non-combatants.

In response to the UN resolution, Arabs launched attacks against Jews everywhere in the country and in particular placed the city of Jerusalem under siege. The Jewish population of Jerusalem was quite literally starving. The only road into the city passed through the area of Deir Yassin, and the Arab militiamen in the town were stopping all convoys from passing through.

Since Israel had yet to be formally proclaimed, the only Jews doing the fighting were members of three poorly-armed militias. The main one was the Hagana, commanded by David Ben Gurion and the socialist Zionist party. There were two smaller ones operating independently under the command of the dissident “revisionist Zionist” movement, the Etsel and the Lehi.

Poorly-trained irregulars of the two latter militias were ordered to attack Deir Yassin to relieve the siege. They did so in ferocious hand-to-hand fighting, in which some Deir Yassin villagers were killed. The Bash-Israel lobby has always maintained that the villagers were “massacred” in cold blood, despite a distinct lack of evidence.

It was done by the Jewish underground not the Govt, and in retaliation for ‘Black Sabbath’ (not the band).
The Jewish National Council denounced the bombing, as did Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion who said the Irgun was “the enemy of the Jewish people”.

Also, the Jews phoned the hotel and told them to get out because there was a bomb. They also rang the French Embassy next door and told them the same thing, and repeated the same warning to the Palestine Post newspaper.
Everyone had 25 minutes to get out, but didn’t. Perhaps they didn’t take the warnings seriously.

Kimbo

It was done by the Jewish underground not the Govt,

As it was in 1946 there was no Israeli “Government”. But the Zionists of every description, denunciations to the contrary, benefited. A year later the British, tired of the conflict punted to the UN and bugged out the year after that.

And yeah apparently the Provisional IRA gave a phone warnings when they bombed Birmingham in 1974. Keep digging/defending the indefensible, Fletch. Unless you now acknowledge Hamas’ use of terrorism is a legitimate political means of gaining what they want…?

The founders of the modern state of Israel sowed the wind, and now their children have reaped the whirlwind.

Eddie S

This is like comparing the IRA to ISIS. The Irgun was against civilian death and lamented those who died in the King David bombing. Hamas revels in the idea of dead Jews and has wishes of a Judenrein world in their charter. To say they took their cue from Irgun is to be ignorant of history, culture, and any sense of nuance.

Eddie S

It was founded primarily on the recognition of the Jewish claim of indigenous status and a long campaign to resettle in their ancient homeland. The minor wars and battles are not great contributions. In fact, it may have almost stopped the negotiated (and widely supported) international agreements.

Kimbo

@ Eddie S

It was founded primarily on the recognition of the Jewish claim of indigenous status and a long campaign to resettle in their ancient homeland. The minor wars and battles are not great contributions. In fact, it may have almost stopped the negotiated (and widely supported) international agreements

“In fact”? Well, if you say it, it must be so 😉 Umm, no, that is yet more rationalising. Considering the British couldn’t wait to get the hell out due to the Zionist terrorist campaign they were facing, I’m not sure “recognition” mattered much. After all the 1947 UN partition Plan recognised the right of an Arab state to also exist in the region. Still waiting…

Mind you, Truman’s support in 1948 was not insignificant. But more important than actually winning the conflicts? Yeah, because international political sentiments and declarations count for sooooo much more than military force, which is why the UN is soooo much more effective in enforcing human rights compared to dictators and despots…, no wait.

But if you want to manufacture more political dogma devoid of facts, go right ahead. Zionist propagandists, like their Palestinian Arab counter-parts have been doing it for long tedious decades.

Kimbo

It was founded primarily on the recognition of the Jewish claim of indigenous status

Apparently not. Instead the real reason is religious belief. Mind you some Jews believe Israel has no right to exist as a political entity until Messiah comes, so who knows?!

So yet more of the contradictory moving goal posts, some incompatible with Jewish faith, that Zionists of various descriptions have been manufacturing for years for propaganda purposes:

From a Torah perspective, the notion that we Jews have a claim to Eretz Yisrael based upon “indigenous rights” is absurd. We are not “indigenous” to Israel. Indigenous is a nonsense term which race obsessed multiculturalists use. Israel belongs to the Jewish nation, because G-d gave it to us. We conquered the Canaanites, and now it is ours. Our claim to Eretz Yisrael is Divine inheritance. Indigenous claims amount to pseudo-science, which in turn, would grant indigenous rights to practically every other minority group living in Israel today. In fact, this is the intention of many who advocate for such a concept.

Fellow Jews, leave the indigenous argument in the halls of the U.N. where it belongs. G-d gave us the land of Israel and that is enough.

Boris Piscina

You probably need to ask Marama Davidson whether she is paying for this trip herself, or whether she has received travel assistance from another country, organisation or government. Otherwise it is safe to assume that she will fly at the taxpayer’s expense, and she is unlikely to be sitting in cattle class.

And what are you doing to mitigate your carbon footprint Ms Davidson, or does the “Women’s Peace Boat” rate as more important than carbon emissions?

mikenmild

Hey, I’m not denying that many Jews lived in Israel, just pointing out that most Israelis are descend from recent immigrants from Europe, Africa and Middle East, whose ancestors had not lived in Israel for many, many centuries.
Given the propensity of apologists for Israeli actions to argue that the Palestinians aren’t indigenous, I thought this ‘fact’ was a bit rich, and completely irrelevant to a discussion about Gaza.

Kimbo

Um, no, the Jews are not indigenous to Palestine/Israel. Their own biblical account presents them as conquerors of the region…and even their religion first took codified shape in the Sinai desert. Even the name “Hebrew”/”from across (the River Euphrates)” reveals the origins of Abram, from “Ur of the Chaldees”.

Joshua 24:2

Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.

….which is what happens when you try the “history of occupancy” argument. Yes, there was a continued Jewish presence in the region, even during the 1,900 year Diaspora. But it was so small and insignificant, rendering the arrival of thousands, then millions of primarily European Zionist settlers in the years up to 1948 in defiance of the wishes of the Arab population who had lived there continuously for over 1,000 years up to that point as …a neo-colonial occupation and eventually conquest.

The modern state of Israel is a fact. Probably an experiment that should not have been attempted, but nonetheless it is a fact and like any nation their existence and right of self-defence is a given.

But selective and ultimately contradictory cherry-picking of history after the event does not change the fact that its establishment was always , as was predicted at the time, going to be a source/excuse of never-ending conflict in a region that already has plenty. And I think there is little doubt the original founders of Isreal like Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir who “went for broke” in 1948 were cynical and pragmatic enough to know that was the case…

Eddie S

To say that Jews have been in the land for 2,000 years but because there was a majority of Arabs who lived there for much of the time after they conquored it doesn’t mean Jews are not indigenous, Kimbo.
That is like saying the Australian aborigines are not indigenous because there are many more Europeans there now.
Also, more than half of the Jewish population of Israel today came from the surrounding Arab lands, not Europe. Either way, the fact they were in the land first makes Jews indigenous – at least much more so than any Arab “Palestinian”.
It’s an important point because Marama keeps saying she’s going to help the Gazans “as an indigenous woman”. She clearly doesn’t know the history!

Kimbo

@ Eddie S

Ho hum. As tiresome as Marama Davidson is, so too is the continual re-defining of “indigenous” by Zionists.

So, once and for all…what is “the” definition? You know, one that isn’t pre-twisted by either pro-Israelis or pro-Palestinians (or is that “Fakeistinians”?) to make their lot the rightful occupiers and the other lot illegitimate interlopers…and that’s without the radical left wing SJWs sticking their nose in! And I’d be interested to know is it te same one as applied in

Kimbo

@ Eddie S

…also if “Jews” – which by definition means…every single one – are “indigenous” to Israel, how come by their own self-description there are Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews with differing cultures and genetic markers?

And just clarifying, in 2,000 years do the descendants of the majority of present-day Kiwis still get to call themselves “indigenous” to the UK and Ireland, with a moral right of settlement over and in defiance of the then-inhabitants whoever they will be?

Kimbo

@ Eddie S

@Kimbo,
I know that this can be confusing for some. Have a read here – it might help you.

Jews are indigenous to Israel/Palestine whereas Arabs are not? Nah, not confusing at all – and from you, Eddie S, not in the least bit surprising…if you’ve decided in advance what definition you want to cherry-pick that concurs with your existing prejudices.

But congratulations for keeping a straight face while posting the link. Yet again, the first casualty of war is truth…

Icarus

Judaism is a religion not a race. The Jew, Muslim and Christian, all came from the same place.

The Jew was the first cult, but due to its hate for humanity never gained any traction among civilised society. Later political people used the Jew hate cult to inflict misery on the world. This contamination continues today and is the entire cause of all Muslim issues in the modern world.

Who says they’re false? (Well, apart from numbers 1 and 7, which are comically wrong.) Good propaganda is true-but-misleading. Propaganda consisting entirely of lies tends to backfire on its creators and have the opposite effect to the one intended.

1. Jews are indigenous to Israel
In the same sense that Arabs are, yes. However, the people who set up Israel and run it are for the most part White colonists from eastern Europe or various other places. Tricky buggers, “facts.”

2. Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a fundamentalist terror organisation with a genocidal purpose
Many places are ruled by objectionable people – Israel, for example. It bears little relevance to the rights of the people living there.

3. Human rights are not high on Hamas’ agenda – women are not allowed in public without a male relative
Ditto. And the example given is an assertion in dire need of some evidence to back it up.

4. Aid is often diverted to terror or misappropriated by millionaire Gazans
Aid is diverted or misappropriated everywhere in the Third World. It’s also delayed, interfered with or blocked by Israel, in Gaza’s case.

5. The blockade is legal and attempting to breach it is reckless: UN
Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and it must withdraw to its 1967 boundaries: UN. I agree that listening to the UN would be a good way forward, but it’s really not very likely, is it?

6. Egypt borders Gaza and blockades more restrictively than Israel
A murderous military dictatorship that’s dependent on the US backs Israel on this one? Quelle surprise.

7. Israel is working to help Gazans
At this point, some explanation is needed of how making people stateless and blockading them constitutes “help.” I hope like fuck that no-one ever decides NZ needs this kind of “help.”

8. This is not the path to peace or helping Palestinians
Neither is keeping them stateless, colonising their country and blockading parts of it, but that doesn’t seem to bother the Israeli government. Maybe deal with those much bigger obstacles before assessing Marama Davidson’s contribution?

9. The Greens are keeping bad company
Well, they could be – never trust a hippy, after all. But I’d want to see some evidence for it in this case.

mikenmild

Who is stopping scientific methods being used to research pre-history in New Zealand?
I hope we’re not about to read a lot of nonsense about embargoes again.
There is no evidence whatsoever that anyone else but Polynesians were the first to settle in Polynesia.

greenjacket

stephieboy: “the Jews have not been in possession and occupation of “their ” land for the last several hundred or so years”
You repeat an anti-Semitic lie peddled by the alt right and the hard left. Jews have continuously lived in Palestine, before the aliyah.

Most people claiming to be “Palestinian” actually are there because they were told they’d get free stuff when the jews were kicked out. For those people, it’s never been “their” land at any time.

A few years ago the BBC did an exercise where a Jewish woman and a Palestinian exchanged letters. The Palestinian pointed out that the Jewish woman’s parents had moved to Israel. When she was asked how many generations back her own family had lived in the area, she got really defensive and claimed the topic wasn’t relevant cos everyone used to live somewhere else.

Yvette

While Greenpeace has “uplifted” the site office of the proposed Ruataniwha Dam and delivered it to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council offices, there are plenty more useful things they can do in New Zealand, rather than supporting a wrong regime thousands of flight miles away.

However using a hiab truck to transport the site office and deposit it outside the front doors of the HBRC building, 100 kilometres away in Napier, must have used quite a bit of gas …
So, no … fuck’em

A Fact-Finding Mission for the UN Human Rights Council (2009) chaired by Richard Goldstone, a former judge of the International Criminal Court, as well as a group of five independent U.N. rights experts concluded that the blockade constituted collective punishment of the population of Gaza and was therefore unlawful.

If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.

…and that in response to something he thought he’d learnt that wasn’t true from another report.

It’s all part and parcel of ongoing argument that it takes a lot of time to stay informed about and which will be, as Eddie S has, characterised differently by different people according to differing contexts, interests and sources.

Rich Prick

What a deluded woman. But good luck with that Women’s Peace Boat, that’ll make ’em sit up and take notice. If any good is to come from this, hopefully it will be a lesson in how tolerant this country is of Greenie protest antics.

I wonder whether she packed that symbol of women’s liberation, her burqa?

Adolf Fiinkensein

Most are either European immigrants or the descendants of those immigrants, the people who argue about the right of Israeli Jews to live in their historical homeland are mysteriously silent when it comes to the rights of Aboriginal Australians, New Zealand Maori or First Nation Americans.

Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a fundamentalist terror organisation with a genocidal purpose

You reap what you sow. Hamas was originally democratically elected in an electio orchestrated to deliver power to the US/Israel sock puppets in the Palestinian Authority, when Hamas won the election the PA attempted a militaery take over of the Strip which was thwarted by Hamas. Israel went nuts and has carried out two major atrocities since while in between times carrying on with regular killings.

Human rights are not high on Hamas’ agenda – women are not allowed in public without a male relative

To operate effectively Hamas could not enforce such a inefficient idea. I am not certain, but I doubt this claims veracity.

Aid is often diverted to terror or misappropriated by millionaire Gazans

More aid is blocked by Israel than is swiped by terrorists or Gazan ‘millionaires’, the power of the terrorists and millionaires in Gaza are a direct consequence of the restriction and terror imposed on the Gazan’s by their Israeli captors.

Eddie S

Actually most Jews in Israel are offspring of those who came not from Europe but from the surrounding Arab lands. They were expelled from Israel when the Arabs conquored it. There are many Europeans also and they were dispersed when the Romans conquored the land. Still makes Jews indigenous.

Blaming Israel for Hamas takes responsibility away from the governing body of Gaza. Why do you not think Palestinians are responsible? You also blame the US for Egypts brutality. Are no Arabs responsible for their actions? Why not blame yourself for Israel, also?

You aren’t certain that Hamas doesn’t have high regard for Human rights? Read their charter or a newspaper that covers the issues. It’s plain to see, they are just another jihadist group.

Did you read the article and follow the sources or is “bollocks” meant to trump any facts?

Sofia

3. Human rights are not high on Hamas’ agenda – women are not allowed in public without a male relative

So how will the average Palestinian Muslim really view Green Party MP and woman, Marama Davidson, on the “women’s peace boat” attempting to breach Israel’s legal maritime blockade of Gaza and raise awareness of the Palestinian cause, especially if these women were successful?

Eddie S

Exactly. They know they will be stopped by Israel and they will be relatively safe. It’s a publicity stunt without any substance.
Hamas will likely treat the women well for the media but they will not be allowed to roam free without a male chaperone.

Kimbo

Umm, kinda like how the Zionists secretly rejoiced at the propaganda victory in 1947 when the SS Exodus laden with illegal Jewish immigrants who also happened to be concentration camp survivors was intercepted by the British and sent back to Europe. Leon Uris even wrote a novel about it which they turned into a movie with Paul Newman.

What goes around comes around, and as I will say yet again, the first casualty war is the truth…

Kimbo

…and I forgot to include the Zionist reaction to the passengers of the SS Exodus being returned to Europe. But then I wasn’t the one who started the pointless and truth-defying “justification from history” argument:

On September 29, 1947, the militant Zionist groups Irgun and Lehi blew up Central Police HQ in Haifa in retaliation for British deportations of Jews who arrived illegally on the Exodus 1947.[31][32][33] 10 people were killed and 54 injured, of which 33 were British.[31] Four British policemen, four Arab policemen, an Arab woman and a 16-year-old were killed.[31] The 10-story building was so heavily damaged that it was later demolished.[31] The bomb type was a barrel bomb, described by police as a “brand new method” and the first use of a barrel bomb by Jewish forces.[34] Irgun would make many more barrel bomb attacks during 1947/48.

Curious2

I have come to this discussion very late.

I think that some context is being lost in the detail.

At the time of the partition, there were less than 50 countries as members of the UN. Since then, there has been a steady break-up of empires, followed by assertions and delivery of sovereignty on the basis of tribal allegiance, religion, geography, history, political affiliation and so on.

This is not, in itself, extraordinary. All of us want a degree of autonomy and control, both as individuals and groups of individuals. What is extraordinary, is that we now have nearly 200 member states in the UN, and only one which attracts such attention as to its very existence!

So why all this debate about Israel?

Should Jews not want for autonomy in the land they came from; that has had permanent Jewish occupation for nearly 4000 years; that held dear (and remembered multiple times though annual festivals and mournings), that expressed the wish to return to that land from which they were dispersed; that suffered for 2000 years as vassals under the whim of feudal leaders; who worked so hard to make emancipation and assimilation work in the more recent economic and political world – only to be nearly exterminated on the basis of their religion and peoplehood….

Of all peoples, Jews know what it is like to rely upon the charity of nations.

I cannot think of a reason as to why they should not have their homeland, just as we enjoy.

And yes, I know that 800,000 local Arabs were forced or encouraged or coerced to leave their land at the the time of the 1948 war of independence.

I also note that ironically a similar number of Jews lost their homes around the same time (in some cases after 2500 years of living) throughout the Arab lands that expelled them.

I also am aware that there were 50 million displaced people in Europe at the end of WW2, and all had been settled in a new homeland by 1960.

So, of all the peoples in the world, why should the Jews not enjoy the rights of self-determination. Of all the peoples that have lost their homes in the world, why should it be that there remains an insidious demand for the destruction of the state that was established to co-exist with the Arabs? And why are the Greens explicitly supporting this?

How deep, and in what mutation, is our current form of Jew-hatred. And I label it in this way simply because it seems so irrational compared to the trials and tribulations of the rest of the post-colonial world.

Morrissey

Shalom Kiwi’s claims are so outrageous, so riddled with falsehoods, that it’s almost futile to reply, but since I’m an optimist, I will make some responses to the most egregious lies….

1.) Jews are indigenous to Israel
So are the Palestinian people.

2.) Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a fundamentalist terror organisation with a genocidal purpose.
Israel is ruled by fundamentalist terrorists, and so is Saudi Arabia.

3.) Human rights are not high on Hamas’ agenda
Neither are they high on the agenda of Likud or the Jewish Home Parties.

– women are not allowed in public without a male relative
Ditto Saudi Arabia.

4.) Aid is often diverted to terror or misappropriated by millionaire Gazans
There is no evidence of that.

5.) The blockade is legal and attempting to breach it is reckless: UN
This is a brazen lie. The blockade, like the annexation wall, has been repeatedly declared illegal under international law, and has been repeatedly condemned by all leading international organizations.

6.) Egypt borders Gaza and blockades more restrictively than Israel
This is quite true. Israel works closely with the Egyptian dictatorship to oppress the citizens of Gaza.

7.) Israel is working to help Gazans
That statement is self-evidently absurd.

8.) This is not the path to peace or helping Palestinians
Surely by now, any sane person will have realized that Shalom Kiwi has no interest in peace or in helping Palestinians.

9.) The Greens are keeping bad company
Perhaps they should be periodically mass-murdered like the people of Gaza are.

Anyone interested in reading something intelligent and informed about Gaza might like to read something by a reputable Israeli writer, like Amira Hass or Gideon Levy….

GoVege

GoVege

I hope Marama will be asking her hosts about their progress on legislation to improve the rights of animals.
Maybe she can drop in at the Palestinian version of the SPCA and have some nice photoshoots with Palestinians cuddling their companion animals?

Eddie S

MH

I blame the NZ Mounted Rifle Brigades for not staying on after WWI and allowing the Brits to mess about. Many of those Pale- stillisons look and speak with a distinct Kiwi accent. Must be indigenous, lets welcome them here.